The Past Is Prologue
by amusewithaview
Summary: Cordelia throws a tantrum... with unexpected results. Strange things begin happening to her, can Giles solve the mystery? Does she actually need him to?


**_Disclaimer: I own neither BtVS nor the worlds or characters of Middle Earth. One is Joss's the other is um... Peter Jackson's? Just kidding, I think it still belongs to the Tolkien family..._**

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"But Daddy!"

The patriarch of the Chase household fixed his daughter with a stern look, "No, Cordelia, and that's final."

"But-"

"Cordy!" He barked. The brunette glared at her father rebelliously before stomping off in her $1,200 Jimmy Choo's.

The maids and servants of the Chase household knew not to get in the way of the volatile teenager when she had just been denied her way. It didn't occur often, but the few prior incidences had been very memorable.

Cordelia snarled at the one unfortunate maid who didn't manage to hide quickly enough: "What are you looking at, huh? Huh? Just because _MY LIFE IS OVER_!!!" This last was shouted in an awe-inspiring bellow that seemed to rattle the glass in the windows. Chase manor echoed with her angry shriek.

Muttering under her breath about 'twits in French-maid caps' Cordelia made her way to her 'spot.' The place where she always went when her daddy denied her something: the attic.

Surveying the gigantic room, Cordelia frowned, she hadn't had reason to be up here in almost… Was it really three years? Yes, she realized, it was. She had not been up here since Grandma Chase had passed on. Most of the old woman's belongings had been shunted up here to this, the least-valued room in the house.

Cordy's nose wrinkled in disgust as she studied the evidence of neglect. Dust, she hated dust, coated every surface. The thick gray stuff obscured most of her old toys, the ones she hadn't let her daddy throw away, even when they were no longer of use to her.

There was the blue rocking-horse she'd broken in a fit of temper at the tender age of three. Off against the wall was the easel her mother had given her, hoping to distract her little girl from her preferred pursuit of horseback riding and channel her energies into something 'more ladylike.' It had worked too, Cordelia had not sat upon a horse since she was eight.

With a sigh, she walked to the nearest chest and began fastidiously cleaning the top, so as to have a clean seat upon which to brood. Life was so unfair! Here she was, fresh from Sophomore year and all of the trauma of she-who-wrecks-things, and now she was going to be stuck in Sunnydale _ALL SUMMER_! Forget Paris, London, heck, even Chicago was out! Cordelia Chase, most popular girl, trendsetter, was stuck in backwater Sunnydale for the next three months.

At last her efforts were paying off, and the shiny mahogany beneath the grime was becoming visible. Cordelia frowned, it looked as if this chest had some sort of name carved onto it. Kathryn Chase had been a notorious packrat, her father had barely looked at his mother's belongings before relegating them to the attic. Cordy scrubbed furiously, until, to her surprise, she could make out her own name.

She sat back on her heels and contemplated the mystery. Why wouldn't daddy give her the chest if he knew Grandma had meant it for her? Shrugging and putting the thought from her mind, the teenager maneuvered the chest away from the wall so she could reach the latch.

Flipping the lid back she was surprised to see a cloth of some kind covering the contents. She lifted it out carefully and discovered that it was a cloak. It was old and faded, but her discerning eyes, honed from years of looking for faults in other's wardrobes, could see that it was well-made. The original color was indeterminable, for now it was a soft gray.

Folding the cloak and gently putting it aside, Cordy frowned down at the rest of the contents. There were several parcels of varying size, all wrapped in old red velvet. Gingerly, she reached down and gripped one of the smaller packages. Through the velvet she felt a small pinch as her skin broke, and suddenly she was paralyzed.

A strange tingling warmth rose up her fingers and into her arm. Cordelia was trapped, unable to move as the sensation rose up her arm, then neck, until finally it settled in her brain. A buzzing sound, like the noise of a crowded cafeteria rose in her head until the roaring of voices trying to be heard caused an involuntary whimper to escape her lips.

Her vision was graying from the outside in, until all she could see was a tiny pinpoint of light. Then even that disappeared and she was lost in a sea of darkness, guided only by the words that tumbled through and over her brain.

_"Much that once was, is now lost… For none now live who remember it…"_

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The first thing Cordelia thought of upon waking was her hair. Without even touching it she could tell that it was hopelessly tangled. She sat up slowly and opened her eyes, darkness was what greeted her. Hours had passed while she was unconscious.

Scrambling to her feet, Cordy beat a hasty retreat from her haven and made her way to her room. The soft blues and greens of the décor soothed her frazzled mind.

"What happened?" She murmured as she sank down onto the plush chair of her vanity. She stared at her reflection in shock. Dark circles made her face look older than her years, and her cheeks had lost a good deal of their plump firmness, causing her already-prominent cheekbones to stand out in sharp relief.

She reached a hand up to her face in shock, then paused when she realized that she was still clutching the red velvet that had started this whole mess. Her hand unclenched slowly, as if her muscles were reluctant to let go. She winced in pain as the velvet tore at the blood that had dried across her palm. Leaving the velvet satchel on her vanity, she crossed her bedroom to the adjacent bathroom and gently washed the long but shallow slash that divided her left palm into two equal halves.

That done, she took up her brush and began the difficult task of taming her thick brown locks. Her movements were slower than normal, and by the time she was finished she had choked back half a dozen yawns.

Her sheets were cool as she slid in between them, and as soon as her head hit the pillow she was fast asleep.

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_A beautiful white city in a valley, filled with serene gardens and trickling waterfalls._

_A proud-looking man with kind gray-brown eyes and a slow smile._

_A mischievous smile reflecting on two identical faces._

_A shattered sword on an altar, and a sense of doom_.

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Cordelia woke with a gasp. It had been six nights since she went into the attic. Six nights filled with strange glimpses of a life most definitely not her own. Six nights of tossing and turning and never getting enough rest. Six days of being unable to recognize her own face in the mirror. Six days of strangeness that she did not understand.

It was time to get help.

But where?

Harmony, Aura and the rest of the gang wouldn't understand. Besides, she would sooner go to school in one of Willow's plaid jumpers then admit to something like _this_.

Her parents were gone, they had left three days ago and were not expected to return until the end of summer.

Who did that leave her with? Who understood things weird and unnatural?

A frown furrowed the brunette's brow as one name surfaced to the forefront of her mind. With a resigned sigh, she went about making herself beautiful, it would put her in a better mood for what was to come. Swallowing one's pride was never a fun duty, and Cordelia knew it would take all her willpower _not_ to choke.

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Rupert Giles was a man bored. His Slayer was on vacation with her father, not that that was necessarily a bad thing. The girl had just averted her first Hellmouth Apocalypse, she deserved a little 'down-time.' Besides, vampire activities were staying down since the death of the Master, and the fledglings that were left were easily taken care of by himself or…

Yes, well, himself.

Knowing that Xander and Willow would not show up until round about 4:00 PM, and considering how few friends he had made in this dismal little town, Giles was startled at the insistent knocking that interrupted his sword-cleaning at noon.

He opened the door to see a figure swathed dramatically in a white trench coat. Large sunglasses and a colorful scarf helped to obscure the identity of the visitor.

"Quick, let me in before somebody recognizes me!"

"Cordelia?"

Even behind the designer sunglasses, her eye-roll was apparent, "Well, duh, who else could look this fashionable while going incognito?"

Still bemused, Giles stepped aside to allow her to enter, "To what do I owe the, uh, surprise?"

Cordelia began to pace, "You're the expert on the weird and icky, aren't you? And I've got some definite 'weird and icky' going do-"

Her eyes had at last lit upon the swords Giles was cleaning. _One _sword in particular, a bastard sword, caught her eye. In an instant her trench coat was thrown off, revealing the gauchos and tank she wore beneath, and the sword was in her hand.

Giles took a hurried jump back as she went into a long series of movements with the blade. Her parries, thrusts, and slashes occupied her long enough for him to get over the shock of seeing 'Queen C' wield a blade, and begin to study the changes in the cheerleader.

The glasses had been lost along with the trench coat, so he could easily see the way her eyes were glazed, as if she was not entirely there. Her face was thinner, appearing to have lost much of the childish puppy-fat that most teenagers carried. She moved with the grace of natural ability honed by years of training, something Giles knew was impossible. Muscles stood out, corded, from her arms as she swung the heavy sword with a practiced ease that he, a Watcher, could only envy.

At last she seemed to come back to herself. She looked down at the silver blade as if it was a snake about to bite her. Tears were forming in her eyes as she looked up at Giles, "What's happening to me?"

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After a cup of hot tea, "You really drink this?" And a few scones, "Geez, you really are British, aren't you?" Cordelia was calmed down enough, or at least back to her snarky self enough to tell the librarian what had happened.

He frowned as he took notes on Cordelia's attic experience, "You say that you didn't get anything from the cloak, correct?"

"No, just that it was old, _really _old, and well made."

"So nothing happened until you touched the red parcel?"

Cordelia began to nod, then stopped, frowning. "No," she corrected, "Nothing happened until I got blood on the thing _inside _the red bag." Her eyes widened, "I don't have like, some demonic STD now do I? 'Cause I can't be diseased, I have a whole life ahead of me and…"

"Breath Cordelia, just breath," said Giles, pouring the overwrought girl some more tea. After almost an hour of questioning the cheerleader he was sorry to realize that he had become used to her rather colorful outbursts. It was amusing to note that the more panicked she grew, the more she reminded him of a certain redhead. Though doubtless neither girl would be flattered with the comparison.

Cordelia took his advice and breathed like her yoga coach had taught her, in on a seven-count, out on a seven-count, in on a seven count, out on a seven count…

"Now, you say that you're not sure how long you were unconsc-" Giles looked up to see the glazed look back in Cordelia's eyes. She rose from the table and began to dance with an invisible partner. Giles frowned, first of all, he didn't recognize the dance, and second of all, there was something… off, about Cordelia's dancing. He couldn't put a finger on it, and yet, there was something there, some clue that he was missing.

When at last the girl came back to herself, there was something different about her.

"Cordelia, I want you to go through that doorway and look into the bathroom mirror, no matter what, _do not_ over-react, alright?"

Her eyes widened, and her hands came up, frantically searching for some imperfection, "Is there something wrong with my face? Oh god, oh god, not my face.." She trailed off into mumbles and Giles had to stifle a smile, though her tangents were essentially self-directed, the similarities between Willow-babble and Cordelia-rant were quite entertaining.

Cordelia frowned as she looked into the mirror: her skin still had it's usual healthy golden glow, she had all the requisite 'face-parts' and they were all in their usual spots.

She leaned out into the living room, "I don't see anything, Giles, maybe you should get a new glasses prescription, or you know, my daddy knows this great Lasik eye surgeon an-"

Giles sighed exasperatedly, "Your _eyes_, Cordelia, look at your _eyes_!"

The cheerleader turned back to the mirror, frowning, and shrieked. Where once her gaze had been a uniform and steady chocolate brown, it was now a light searching gray. On the whole, the vain part of Cordelia found the change to be rather appealing, it gave her an older, more distinguished look. Unfortunately for the librarian's ears, in matters of life-and-death, the vain part of Cordelia was _not _at the controls.

"Oh. My. _God_, Giles, what am I gonna do?" She shrieked.

"Take me to your house and show me what you touched, _exactly _what you touched, we'll get to the bottom of this," he comforted the distraught teen.

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"Are you sure this is alright?" Giles asked yet again as Cordelia dragged him up to the attic.

Newly-gray eyes rolled, "Yes, now _move_! I wanna get this fixed before I'm old and gray." A scowl crossed her face, "Wait, I'm already turning gray, aren't I?"

"Yes, quite… but are you sure that your parents won't object to my being here?" The librarian cleaned his glasses, a rather telling habit he'd developed since coming to America.

"Giles, my parents are off in Aruba, or Argentina, or… I don't know, _SOMEWHERE_! They left me here _ALL SUMMER_, it'd serve them right if I burned the place down or something. Trust me," she quirked an eyebrow at him, "Bringing the school librarian home is the _least _of their worries as far as I'm concerned!"

"Ah," was his rather intelligent response to the cheerleader's little tirade.

Cordelia stopped at the foot of a flight of stairs, pointing nervously, "The attic's up that way."

"You'll need to come with me, Cordelia," Giles said gently.

The teenager's eyes were fixed on the door at the top of the landing as she responded, "Yeah, I know." She didn't move as she continued, not a little defensively, "But, just gimme a minute, ok? You guys are all used to this kinda thing, aren't you? And aside from all that weirdness with Amy… this is new to me, ok?"

The librarian shifted, uncomfortable with this vulnerability from the typically acerbic girl.

"Ok," she huffed, blowing a piece of hair from her eyes, "Let's go."

The pair made their way up the stairs slowly, Cordelia out of fear, and Giles out of respect for the cheerleader. The door opened smoothly, and the brunette stepped aside so Giles could go in front.

"It's that chest over there," she pointed helpfully, "The one that's open."

Giles bent and lifted the cloak from the ground where Cordelia had left it the night she fled from the attic. As it came into Cordy's view her eyes glazed once again, as she snatched the gray cloth from Giles's grasp and swung it about her own shoulders.

She came to with a gasp, staring at him in surprise, "I… remember something! The other times it's been like… I don't know." She shrugged helplessly, "It goes all fuzzy and when I wake up, I'm doing something or I'm somewhere else, and I feel like I've lost something, you know?"

"How was this time different?" Giles looked down at the little notebook he was using to document Cordelia's strange experiences.

"This time," she paused, searching for the right words, "This time, it felt like I was somewhere else, like I was _someone _else. I was preparing for a long journey, and I wasn't sure if I was gonna survive it…" She trailed off, her eyes troubled.

Giles could not help but notice that she made no move to be rid of the cloak. That in itself was a development, and not necessarily a good one. "Where is the red parcel, the one that you, eh-hem, bled on?"

"It's still downstairs, in my room, I'll go get it. You do… whatever it is you do, with the chest over there." Her brow furrowed as she suddenly thought of something, "Why would my Grandma leave me something that would hurt me?"

"Did she dislike you? Or was there some indication that she intended to leave some sort of… legacy to you?" Giles questioned.

"No, Grandma Chase and I always got along," Cordelia smiled reminiscently. "She was always my favorite Grandparent, she used to laugh when I threw a tantrum, said it was like getting another glance at the past." She paused and grimaced, "That's not a normal thing to say is it?"

The Watcher was frowning, "No, no it isn't."

"I always thought she meant it was like getting another glimpse into daddy's past, like she was remembering his childhood, or something…" Cordelia smiled faintly, "But that wasn't what she meant at all, was it?"

"It doesn't seem that way, but all we have is conjecture right now, Ms. Chase. Cheer up, she may be just your favorite Grandma, as you remember."

"Yeah, maybe. I'll go and get that other velvet bag, ok?" She headed out the door, and down the stairs.

Giles knelt down before the chest and sketched the placement of the items into his notebook, he was not yet sure what was going on, and any evidence would be crucial.

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The red-velvet bag was exactly where Cordelia had left it. It seemed so innocuous, sitting there on the vanity, but the teenager approached it as if she was nearing a rabid dog. Though few people would have the guts to describe the cheerleader as anything even remotely resembling 'timid' her reticence with the bag could hardly be described as anything else.

The velvet was soft against her sore palm when she picked it up. Studying it, she could see the opening near the top… did she really want to know what was inside it? What had cut her and maybe diseased her?

_Yes!_

She tipped the bag over above her vanity and leapt back as two small metal objects came tumbling out, landing with soft pings on the glass before bouncing off onto the carpet below.

"Ok, calm down, they're not gonna bite you. They might make you do crazy dance-fight-dream stuff, but they're not gonna bite you… I hope!"

With that less-than-comforting encouragement, Cordelia knelt down on the carpet and reached for the first of the two items. It was silver, a beautiful pendant with a strange v-shaped flower design. It shone and sparkled in such a way that Cordelia immediately decided that the stone must be some sort of a diamond. The edges of the metal were red, but the cheerleader doubted that this had been the item to cut her, even IF her blood obviously stained it.

Setting the pendant back into the bag, she reached for the second item. This seemed a much more likely candidate for her injury. It was a pin, probably for some sort of an old-fashioned cloak. Silver, like the pendant, it had a green enamel-design shaped like an artistic leaf. The craftsmanship on the pin made Cordy sigh with admiration, the dried blood coating the metal made her remember that Giles was waiting.

Scrambling up from the carpet, a sharp pain stabbed through her hand. Her eyes were wide as she glanced down to see that her scratch had opened up again, and was seeping blood onto the velvet bag.

"Shit," the teenager murmured faintly as gray began to once more take over her vision, "Why does this sort of stuff always happen to _ME_?"

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_Soft murmuring and a gentle hand stroking her brow._

_A white city full of people who had lost too much._

_Friends, leaving, never to be seen again._

_The march of time changing everything… everything… everything…_

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"Cordelia! Cordelia!"

She felt someone shaking her, bumping her head against the carpet repeatedly. Her eyes opened to stare at her 'rescuer' accusingly, "Hey, watch the hair!"

Giles sighed and sat back on his heels as the brunette sat up, "I've been trying to wake you for fifteen minutes!"

"Well that's no reason to make me look like Raggedy Anne," Cordelia snapped, sitting up and finger-combing her locks into a semblance of acceptable order.

The Watcher stifled the urge to roll his eyes, instead scrubbing at his face with his hand.

Teenagers. When he'd come down from the attic fifteen minutes ago he'd wanted nothing more than to strangle the girl who'd kept him waiting upstairs for twenty minutes. The sight of her lying on the ground had him wanting to save her, and now he was back to restraining the 'strangle' impulse again.

Finished with her hair, Cordelia rose, "Did you find anything upstairs?"

"What? Oh, um, yes, a couple of swords, a crown, and a photo-"

"Swords? That makes sense, I remember something about Grandma Chase being a fencer, or something," Cordelia shook her head, "What else?"

"Your Grandmother fenced? Cordelia, things like that fall under the category of 'pertinent information' especially with the strange skill you displayed not two hours ago! Why didn't you tell me about your Grandmother?" Giles asked, exasperated.

"You didn't ask," the cheerleader explained, and proceeded to ignore Giles's annoyed mutterings as they headed back up to the attic for 'round two.'

Giles pulled out one of the longer bundles, "There appear to be a great many museum-quality things in this chest, one wonders why your Grandmother would waste them on you."

"Hey! I'm in the middle of a crisis here! So make with the finding and not the mocking!"

The librarian had the grace to look slightly abashed at Cordelia's acidic reminder, "Yes, well, there are two swords: one a bastard sword: obviously meant for a man's use-"

"Bastard sword?"

"Two-handed grip, like the one you used in my-" Giles paused, expression absorbed as he remembered that the sword Cordelia had gone for had been the bastard sword. A sword commonly meant for a man, and when she danced… _she _had been leading! _That _was the thing that had seemed 'wrong!' Whatever was happening to Cordelia, and Giles was beginning to lean towards some sort of possession, was masculine in origin.

Studying the impatient female before him, Giles wisely decided to keep that tidbit of information to himself. Having been subjected to numerous fearful rants about 'supernatural STDs' he was not interested in adding a diatribe on 'supernatural sex-changes' to the mix.

"Well," standing and taking out his glasses for a good cleaning, Giles regarded the chest and it's contents with new eyes, "I think it would be best if I took the, er, trunk back to my place to look it over, see if anything pops up from one of my books."

Cordelia frowned, "Can't you just kinda, I don't know, make a spooky diagnosis now?"

Giles gave her an exasperated look, "I'm a Watcher, Cordelia, not some sort of witch-doctor. I'll get back to you as soon as I find something concrete, in the meantime, try to document any… 'fuzzy' incidences you have. How long you're unaware, and what happens, etc."

"But…" suddenly she deflated, "Alright, take the chest with you, just… hurry, ok?"

"I will do everything in my power to find a remedy, Cordelia, " Giles said, kindly. It was hard to remember that this force-of-nature was really only a child, one who needed care and guidance. The face that she presented to the world was usually so confident and brassy no one felt the need to look beyond it and see what shadows might lie there.

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Cordelia went to bed that night with no little trepidation. Her last few nights had been strange, filled with dreams and half-formed images of people and places… Not to mention the bizarre fuzz-outs, six of which had occurred today. Whatever was happening to her, it was getting worse, or escalating. However you wanted to put it, Cordelia wanted it stopped, and soon.

Even her most comfortable pajamas could not comfort her. In the end, she snuck into her parents room and took one of her daddy's sleeping pills. She had done it before, on rare occasions when she had been unable to sleep, but the effects were mild, and so long as she didn't make a habit of it she didn't see the harm.

She _needed _a full eight hours, no matter _how _she got them. Besides, with the drugs, she wouldn't dream. Right?

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"Wrong," the old woman smiled at Cordelia.

The cheerleader was incredulous, "Grandma?"

"Yes dear, it's me," she held her arms open and the young girl threw herself into them. The two women shared a long, hard hug. Grandma Chase had always been Cordelia's favorite grandparent, more kind words and open affection had come from this woman than any $2,000 allowance could make up for from her parents.

Remembering the last few days, she broke free from her grandmother's embrace and backed away a few steps, "Grandma, what's been going on? Why did you leave me that stuff? I got blood on it and it's been doing all this weird-"

Kathryn held up a finger and covered her granddaughter's lips gently, stopping the rant before it could really get going. Her hazel eyes sparkled as she regarded the brunette, "I've missed you Cordy. I'm here to… explain some things to you, and to facilitate a meeting."

"Yeah, an explanation would be good, Grandma. What's happening to me?"

"You're remembering," the older woman revealed, eyes solemn.

Cordelia let her grandmother collect herself for a moment before, "Ok… remembering what, exactly. 'Cause I don't think I've ever seen any of the things that I've been 'remembering' these last few days." Thinking over some of her fuzz-outs she exclaimed indignantly, "And I do _not _dance like a man!"

Kathryn chuckled, "No, you don't dance like a man, dear. But you did, once, a long time ago, in your last life."

The brunette's gray eyes almost bugged out of her skull, "I was a _MAN_ in a past life?!"

"Yes dear, in your last life, several thousand years ago, you were Aragorn, High King of Gondor."

"Well, at least I was royalty," she muttered, slightly mollified. "But why am I remembering all this stuff, why do I need to?"

"You don't need to, exactly, but you would've, just like I did. And I figured that this way, you'd have a mediator. This way you won't have to do it on your own," Kathryn said gently.

Cordelia was confused, and growing wary, "What do you mean, 'go through it on my own?' I don't want to go through _ANYTHING_! Am I gonna become a man, oh my god, oh my god…"

"No! Why would you think you're going to become a man?"

A little embarrassed at the incredulous amusement in her grandmother's voice, Cordelia explained, "Well, my eyes changed color so I thought…"

"Eyes are the window to the soul, dear, the only reason they changed was to show that you've lifted the barrier so to speak," Kathryn explained.

A frown furrowed the teenager's brow, "So, my soul is gray? Isn't that a bad thing? Don't I want a white soul?"

"No, no, no, dear, here: look." With a wave of her hand, Grandma Chase held two pictures, both in full Technicolor, before her granddaughter. Pointing to one, which showed a significantly younger Kathryn posing in front of some sort of finishing school, she said, "See? My eyes are very dark here, they used to be brown a lot like yours." Pointing to the other picture, which depicted a slightly older Kathryn currying a horse, "Then after I… 'woke up' my eyes changed back to their natural color, hazel."

"But what do you mean, 'woke-up?' I've always been awake!"

"Your soul has been sleeping," she reached out and placed a hand over Cordelia's breastbone, "It's there, but dormant, guiding you but not _of _you."

Cordelia thought that over for a moment, she'd always felt as if something was missing from her life, something essential. But she never knew what or why, just that shopping helped ease the pain and keeping busy made it easier to ignore.

"Who were you, in the past?"

Kathryn drew herself up proudly, "I was Eowyn, sister to Eomer, and wife of the Steward of Gondor. We were friends, allies, we fought together in a great war."

"So this whatever-it-is that started when I went up into the attic, it won't turn me into a boy, or kill me or anything?"

"No."

"Ok… what do I do?"

Kathryn smiled, "I'm glad you've asked, there's someone you need to meet…"

A figure resolved itself out of the swirling gray mist that surrounded them. It was a man. He was tall, strong looking, with dark brown hair and piercing gray eyes. He was familiar to Cordelia, so achingly familiar that she wondered how she'd never noticed that he wasn't there in her life, the way she knew now that he should be.

He stopped in front of her, expression gentle, "I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and we have much to speak of…"

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**_El Fin_**

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**_Or is it?_**

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**_A/N: Like it, love it, loathe it with the fiery intensity of a thousand hot suns? Please let me know!_**


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